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Phew!

So, I’ve just killed the better part of a day sorting things out on the epiktools website. I’d like to imagine that it is now about 30% complete. The truth is that a ton of work goes into building the infrastructure, and that ought to count for something, but as far as content goes, I’d have to say only 15% of that is in place.

The desktop videos have been far more difficult than I imagined. I mean the videos of me working through some task on the PC and shooting the action on the PC desktop with camstudio or debut or jing. While I talk our way through it.

Have you ever tried to orally verbalize everything you are watching, considering, and doing while driving? When I was learning to drive, that was a technique that some magazine article suggested. Couldn’t have been more wrong-headed, a sure recipe for one’s first accident. Maybe if one only verbalized some tokens plucked from the mental activity stream, maybe.

Keeping up a cheerful but focused chatter while opening windows, selecting options, recalling next steps, backing out of wrong turns, waiting while Windows burps on a tough chunk and lurches back into action–that turns out to be more draining than teaching.

I’ve found a thing called Prompt that should help with keeping up a smooth flow. It works like a teleprompter with any text. With it on one side of a wide screen and the video action kept on the other side, it helps. But it does require a couple of rehearsals and some script writing. I decided to just wing it, and barged ahead on a few desktop videos, but found that I ended up scrapping the "winging it" videos anyways. Even winging it demands some rehearsals.